Monica is a Commerce and H.Diploma in Education graduate from NUIG followed by Teacher’s Diplomas in Office Skills. She holds Postgraduate Diplomas in School Guidance & Counselling and Educational Leadership and Management, both from NUI Maynooth. She taught in her subject areas in mainstream and the PLC sector for a while before training to become a Guidance Counsellor and moving into this area at second level in the West for some time. All the aforementioned educational experience sparked an interest in leadership and after further Postgraduate study in Educational Leadership & Management she worked as the Director of Castlebar College of FE/Deputy Principal (Davitt College) since 2015 up until the amalgamation of WCFE and CCFE in April 2021 to form the new Mayo College of FET.
She sees the Post Leaving Cert Model as a sound building block for life, work and higher education and would love to see it as a more popular and recommended option for all students on completion of their final year in school. She gets huge enjoyment at seeing students go on to reach their potential.
She likes nature and the outdoors, travelling, theatre, comedy, choir, and everything artistic and creative. She takes a great interest in alternative therapies and is a qualified Life & Business Coach, NLP Practitioner and has recently began her training in Bio Energy Healing.